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Veterans • Veterans Health Care As New Hampshire veterans increasingly find themselves experiencing longer waiting periods and traveling extended distances to access care, John will continue to make sure the New England VA healthcare system receives all the necessary resources. In particular, John helped secure a new VA Veterans Center in Berlin to provide counseling and outreach services for combat veterans. As a result, veterans in the North Country who would otherwise have to travel to Manchester for counseling and other services can now access care closer to home. John has also worked to increase the availability of care for veterans returning from the front lines with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Designating highly regarded facilities, such as the Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center in Greenfield, New Hampshire, as satellite care centers for war-related injuries would translate to treatment closer to home. Nationally, the Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Rehabilitation Act (S. 1233), which John co-sponsored, would allow these injured veterans to seek rehabilitative treatment through non-VA providers if they live an extended distance from a VA hospital or if the VA is unable to provide the necessary level of care. Not all wounds are visible, and there exists a significant need for improvement in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and related mental health issues. With a comprehensive outreach and counseling program, New Hampshire’s National Guard has taken the lead in this area by instituting a reunion and reentry program to assist returning soldiers and their families. Based on the success of the New Hampshire Guard’s program, John has co-sponsored two amendments in 2007 to create and fund similar programs for Guard members and their families across the country John has been a strong supporter of increased funding for VA healthcare services and VA benefits since he came to Congress in 1997. Funding for the VA continues to be a central concern today as the number of young veterans returning home from conflicts abroad increases. John’s efforts have resulted in a dramatic increase in VA healthcare funding since 2001. Additionally, John is a long-time co-sponsor of legislation (S. 773) to provide military retirees with increased access to affordable health care by allowing them to pay health insurance premiums on a pre-tax basis and creating a federal tax deduction for TRICARE supplemental premiums. • Disabled Veterans Out-of-date regulations should not be an obstacle to veterans receiving their well-deserved benefits. This is why John worked on behalf of our nation’s disabled veterans to upgrade eligibility criteria for housing assistance grants to help them move home from medical facilities as quickly as possible, and to modify their residences to better accommodate their disabilities. A long-time dedication to this cause resulted in the passage of the “Veterans’ Housing Opportunity and Benefits Improvement Act of 2006” that included John’s initiative to update eligibility criteria for housing assistance grants to modify the homes of younger disabled veterans. The President signed the bill into law on June 15, 2006. The law, endorsed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars,
Disabled American Veterans and the Paralyzed Veterans of America,
established a five-year pilot program to extend the eligibility
for housing grants to veterans who live with their families. Additionally,
the law allows veterans to receive up to three grants in their lifetime
so that if a veteran were to move, they could modify their new home.
Previous law allowed for a one-time grant. • Concurrent Receipt John is a longtime supporter of concurrent receipt legislation to permanently end the 1890’s law requiring the dollar-for-dollar reduction of retirement pay by disability benefit payments received by military retirees. Each year, he has supported an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Act to require full concurrent receipt for all military retirees with a service-connected disability, regardless of their disability rating. Although much progress has been made on this issue over the past few years, John will continue to fight for passage of full concurrent receipt for disabled military retirees. • Survivor Benefit Plan Annuity John has long supported the elimination of the so-called “widow tax” on survivors of military retirees age 62 and up - an unfair tax that reduces the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuity for older survivors of service members. Provisions in the fiscal year 2005 Department of Defense Authorization Act, legislation backed by John, phases out this tax by April 1, 2008, to ensure survivors receive the annuity their loved ones have earned. Prior to this provision becoming law, the percentage of benefits paid by the SBP to survivors decreased at age 62 when they became eligible for Social Security benefits. John also supports the elimination of another unfair practice where by survivors who are eligible for both the SBP annuity and Dependence and Indemnity Compensation are unable to fully collect each benefit. Under current law, those survivors who are eligible for both programs have their SBP benefit offset dollar-for-dollar by any DIC benefits they receive.
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